


Guilty Progress

by D_f_m22



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Child Murder, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-03
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-12-23 12:47:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11990109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/D_f_m22/pseuds/D_f_m22
Summary: Redemption is a progress, a challenging one at that. Missy faces a bump in the road.





	Guilty Progress

**Author's Note:**

> Another little one shot. Feedback appreciated.

She’s taken by surprise when she sees it. 

It’s a regular evening in the Vault- a Wednesday or one of the other equally dull days that she’s now forced to endure-and she’s reading over last week’s newspapers. The Doctor’s cut out all the good bits, of course. All the wars, murders and natural disasters are no more. The paper is much scarcer now and filled with features that make Missy want to poke her eyes out. There are stories about dogs that take themselves on the same bus route each day and octogenarians finding wartime letters in their lofts. She’s about to turn into the sports section and read about how the men in blue shirts beat the men in red shirts when a tiny column catches her attention. 

 

It’s a tiny column that must have escaped the Doctor’s attention.

 

It’s not the content of the column so much as the picture that’s snatched her eye. A smiling boy, no more than ten, is beaming back at her. Hazel eyes stare out of the paper, immortalised in that fragment of time. 

 

“Tooting Boy Killed in Freak Accident.”

 

Freak accident. That’s what the humans were calling it. Missy folded the paper over and felt the ink smudge under her sweaty fingers as she pulled it closer to her face, scrutinising it in every detail. 

 

“Alex Dandley was found on Tooting Common last May with wounds to his head and neck. He had been playing in the park while his mother took his five-year-old brother to the toilet. The eight-year-old, a pupil at Tooting Woods Primary School, had only been alone a matter of minutes when tragedy struck. An inquest has ruled accidental death. It is believed Alex suffered the fatal head injuries after slipping from the climbing frame. Wandswoth Borough Council has launched an investigation into the safety of climbing equipment in its parks.” 

 

Missy made a clicking noise with her tongue. 

 

“Alex Dandley.” she said testing out the name on her tongue. 

 

He hadn’t looked like an Alex when she’d seen him that day in the park. It had been a hot day- especially for May- Missy remembered. It was even more surprising that the park had been so quiet given the unseasonably glorious weather. Humans loved the sun, even though it burned them, and British humans seemed to worship it even more than most. 

 

That fateful day, Missy had been sat by the closed ice cream shop. She’d been him then and he’d looked dreadfully out of place, dressed head to toe in a black suit more fitting of the sixties than the early noughties. Had anyone seen him loitering, little Alex’s death probably wouldn’t have been ruled as an accident quite so quickly. As it were, no one was around to see him testing out his new incinerator. The new toy worked perfectly well- it had destroyed the boy’s internal organs instantly- it just didn’t manage to incinerate him. It left a messy body behind and the Master had always hated a mess. The mother and younger child had been close to returning and he had left in haste. With no time to dispose of the body, the Master had left his little body there in the bright sunlight for all to see. 

 

The mother’s bloodcurdling scream had been devastatingly beautiful. 

 

Suddenly, Missy found no beauty in the scream. Where the memory had once brought joy, it now brought only guilt. Gut-wrenching guilt that leaves her sick to the stomach. There are tears on her cheeks and she realises with disgust that they had been there since she spotted Alex’s picture. The salty tears slip down her face freely, unrelenting in their pursuit as they drop onto the paper and smudge the ink even more. 

 

Missy thought she’d seen the last of young Alex but her time in solitude had thrown up so many ancient ghosts. She shouldn’t really be surprised by another one. 

 

“Hello, Missy? Oh come on, I asked you to lay the table for tea.”

 

The Doctor’s voice echoes into the Vault as the first sign that she was no longer alone. She hadn’t heard the lofty doors rumble open, or felt his presence light up her lonely pseudo-tomb. Angrily, she wipes at her damp cheeks, rubbing the heel of her hand across her skin until the pale colouring reddens. Her free hand clenches around the paper, scrunching up the immortalised image of Alex Dandley into a tiny ball, wishing she could rid the image from her mind. 

 

She hears the other Time Lord behind her and feels him hovering at the door frame unsure whether to enter her room or not. His grey eyes are examining her, she can feel it burning a hole in her core. He's watching the rigid movements of her form, noting the tension and white knuckles. He can’t see her face, but she knows that he knows she’s crying. 

 

“What’s happened?” He asks, gruff voice laced with genuine concern. 

 

It had been only ten minutes since he’d left to get some food, he must think her so unstable. She was, she thought glumly. 

 

“Get out.”

 

“Missy, talk to me please,” the Doctor says, taking a step towards her. When he’s met with silence and heavy breathing, he tries to ply her with an endearment. Little pet names usually softened her. “Please, my darling, tell me what’s wrong?” 

 

They’d made progress, the Doctor thought, in talking about their emotions. Neither of them had been very good at expressing real feelings this time around, but they’d worked on it together. Couples therapy, Missy had jokingly labelled it. 

 

“I said,” Missy stated slowly, through laboured breaths, “get out. Doctor, this is your last warning. If you don’t leave, I will bang your pretty head of curls against the wall until blood is spilling from your ear. Take the warning and leave.” 

 

He does. She hears footsteps start up and fade away. She’s alone again and lets the guilt that is tied in a terrible knot in her stomach become her. As the guilt unravels, she curls up trying in vain to understand the emotion usually reserved for the Doctor. 

 

XXXXXXXX

 

Three hours have passed when Missy summons the energy to move from her position on the floor. She didn’t deserve the bed, or the wicker chair. Comforts were for good people, not her. Uncurling, her bones click as she pulls on an old jumper. The once bright navy wool is dulled and the edges are frayed. The Doctor had offered to buy her some new clothes- she could even choose what she wanted online, he’d said. She’d said no. Good people deserved new things, not her. If she said yes, every time she’d wear the new jumper, she’d feel a surge of guilt knowing she didn’t deserve it. The guilt made her feel sick. She didn’t want to feel sick. 

 

Its these thoughts that are running around her mind, swirling round and around on a loop, as she pads into the living area of the Vault, intent on getting a glass of cool water. She didn’t really deserve water but if she stopped drinking again, her body would give out like last time. The Doctor would end up caring for her, like he had done when she’d passed out through dehydration. She didn’t deserve the comforting feeling of his fingers in her hair, or the gentle care with which he’d spoon fed her and held the water up to her cracked lips. So, she’d have to take a small sip of water she didn’t deserve to prevent an even bigger thing she didn’t deserve. 

 

Alex Dandley would never drink water again. 

 

She’s still holding the article in her hand, not daring to let go of the physical reminder of one of her sins. Its only one. It’s not even the tip of the iceberg. Even if she could gain redemption for his death, she’d never have enough lifetimes to gain full redemption. 

 

Missy’s bony hand reaches out for the tap. She twists the hot tap on to the highest setting and sticks her hand under it, hissing at the pain and relishing the distraction from her thoughts. 

 

“No, you don’t. Not this again.”

 

She’s pulled away from the tap in a flurry of activity she can’t quite keep up with. By the time she registers the Doctor’s words, she’s sat at the table with a pack of peas wrapped in a tea towel numbing the reddening burn on her left hand. 

 

No. No. No. She didn’t deserve this. 

 

“You didn’t leave,” she says numbly. 

 

“Thank goodness I didn’t. Who knows what you would have done if I wasn’t here to stop you.”

 

The Doctor had been sat in the living area, trying to plan a lecture while he let Missy try to work through whatever emotion she was experiencing. He’d heard her cry and sob and make pained little whines. When the door had finally opened, she’d walked past him like a zombie caught up in another world. He’d watched, not wanting to startle her but having to step in when she seemed intent on hurting herself again. 

 

“I asked you to leave” Missy mumbles. 

 

The pain is setting in now and she drops the article she’d been grasping to the floor, instead using her hand to apply more pressure to the burn. It relieves the pain but it’s a relief she doesn’t deserve. 

 

“When have either of us ever done what we were told?” 

 

He’s hoping to get a laugh out of her but she just stares blankly. The Doctor sighs and notices the discarded newspaper. He picks it up, frowning as he sees the article on a young boy’s death. It was sad but didn’t account for her behaviour. 

 

“You need to stop this,” Missy murmurs under her breath. “I can never be good. I keep remembering things I’ve done and the people I’ve killed. It’s never ending and I’m only going to disappoint you in the end and then I will have done another bad thing. The worst thing. I don’t want to disappoint you. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

 

She’s fidgeting now, unable to sit still. The Doctor’s eyebrows knit together and he lets out a sigh that seems to have been caused by all the universe’s problems. A brief look at the contents of the article and he pieces together what has happened. Another life taken by her hands. He wonders briefly which set of her hands had created this victim, but then realises it makes no real difference. He lets out another sigh and reminds himself that it was good that she was feeling remorse. For once, she was understanding the gravity of taking a life. In the same breath, he reminds himself that too much guilt is never good. It rots a person from the inside out. Guilt went hand in hand with depression. Missy had always been predisposed to depression and he was making her worse. 

 

No, the Doctor told himself, catching on to his own guilt starting to churn. He was helping her. They both knew this was going to be tough. 

 

“You’re trying your best to be good. I can see that,” he says softly. “Let’s go for a walk together,” he says when Missy’s fidgeting becomes uncontrollable. 

 

They walk around the Vault at least fifty times, the repetitiveness seeming to calm Missy somewhat. The Doctor holds her up, rubbing a thumb along the worn wool of her jumper. She falters occasionally and he steadies her, letting her crumble and then helping her back up so they can resume their laps. 

 

“I killed him,” Missy says for the hundredth time. “They said it was an accident but it was me.” 

 

“I know,” the Doctor says grimly. “I know it was you.” 

 

“I can’t…” she pauses, swallows back bile and falters in his grasp. “I can’t be redeemed.” 

 

“Your deeds will never go away,” the Doctor says. “You’ve done them and you have to live with the consequences. This is progress, Missy, you’re accepting there are consequences.”

 

She doesn’t respond and they continue their laps. 

 

XXXXXXXX

 

The Doctor puts a stop to their walking when the sixth hour approaches. Missy doesn’t object, exhausted in both a physical and mental sense. He leads her into the bedroom, sits her down and changes her into pyjamas. She bats him away.

 

“Stop it,” she whines not unlike a child. “I don’t deserve kindness. I’ve not been good.”

 

“Shh, shh, shh” he responds. “Everyone always deserves kindness.” 

 

Missy makes an odd sob like noise and stops responding verbally after that. The Doctor does up her pyjama shirt and hums an old lullaby hoping it will ground her even though her mind has wandered somewhere hidden. He pulls back the duvet and guides her pliant form into the soft embrace of the mattress. Missy stares up at him through dazed eyes. 

 

“Close your eyes, sweetheart” he sings softly. 

 

She smiles at the endearment she didn’t deserve and allows her eyes to drift shut. 

 

The Doctor kisses her forehead, pulls up a chair and watches as she grants herself a temporary forgiveness.

 

Tomorrow will be a new day. It might be a better day or it might be a worse day but the Doctor allows himself a small smile knowing they are making progress together.


End file.
